Long the mainstay of professional photographers, the Single Lens Reflex camera is slowly dying off. Nikkei Asia reports that Nikon will stop developing new SLRs in favor of mirrorless cameras, and that Canon has plans to follow.
Japanese camera maker Nikon will withdraw from the single-lens reflex camera business and shift toward digital offerings amid intensifying competition from smartphone cameras, Nikkei has learned.
Nikon's SLR cameras have been widely used by professional photographers for more than 60 years and have come to be seen as synonymous with the Japanese company.
It now plans to focus resources on mirrorless cameras, which have become mainstream products on the back of more advanced digital technologies.
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Rival Canon also plans to follow Nikon and stop producing SLRs within a few years.
I have a stack of Nikon SLRs and dSLRs I never use anymore. If I shoot a film camera I shoot a TLR and for almost everything else I use my iPhone. It isn't worth lugging around the thousands of dollars and 10s of lbs of gear for the SLRs any longer.
